Major-General Sir George Younghusband was an experienced soldier who had known Kipling in India, and was fairly sure the novelist had pieced together his military jargon from visits to garrisons in Shimla and Lahore. But in all his soldiering, neither the General nor his fellow officers had ever heard his men talk like the troops in Rudyard Kipling’s tales.

Almost overnight, said Younghusband, his men began to talk like the soldiers in Kipling’s stories, though they had never done so before. ‘Tommy Atkins’ changed from a rather sullen and pugnacious man into a light-hearted, perky fellow, a change that Younghusband had no hesitation in crediting to Kipling, and which he regarded as a priceless boon to Britain’s armed forces.

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